Microsoft officials last month said they had revised their Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) plans so as to get a Windows-7-friendly version of its tools out to businesses around the time of the Windows 7 launch. On October 20, the MDOP team announced it was ready to open the floodgates.

Microsoft officials last month said they had revised their Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) plans so as to get a Windows-7-friendly version of its tools out to businesses around the time of the Windows 7 launch.

On October 20, the MDOP team announced that the newest version of MDOP isready for download. Software Assurance licensees who've purchased MDOP can get the final MDOP 2009 R2, as the revised version of the pack is known. And those who aren't already customers but who have MSDN/TechNet subscriptions can try it out today, as well.

MDOP is a collection of deployment-focused tools. Originally, Microsoft was planning to hold up the new MDOP release until early 2010 in order to include updated versions of all six tools in the pack. But the team decided instead to get a Windows-7-focused version of MDOP out now and provide the updated MED-V virtualization tool to business users via a service pack once it is available in early 2010. (MED-V is the application-virtualization software based on the Kidaro technology Microsoft acquired in 2008.)

MDOP 2009 R2 will be available today to existing MDOP customers for download via the Microsoft Volume Licensing Site (MVLS). For others who want to evaluate MDOP but who aren't current customers, Microsoft is making it available via MSDN and TechNet

According to a new post on the MDOP Team Blog, Microsoft is planning to make a beta version of MED-V version 1.0 SP1 by the end of calendar 2009. The final release is still on track for the first quarter of 2010, officials said.

An updated version of another MDOP tool, Asset Inventory Service (AIS) 2.0 -- which will get new hardware inventory functionality, a Silverlight-based interface, better scalability, and the ability to track virtual apps -- is now available to beta testers. Registration for the AIS 2.0 beta closes on October 24. The final version of that service is slated for the first half of 2010.